some prose, but these days mostly photography of the places I've gone and lived, esp. Boston, Cambridge, Somerville, and Jamaica Plain

Thursday, February 09, 2006

Detention Journal, part three

Is there some reason, by the way, that no one’s talking about how we’re reliving the Red Scare these days? Terrorism is the new Communism! Enforced Liberation is the new Containment! Gross Unchecked Consumerism is the new Gross Unchecked Consumerism!

Has it not occurred to anybody? Or is it just that our schools are really as bad as they say? Being in lockup makes you think about these things.

Well, being in lockup in addition to, say, all the geopolitical events of the past several years.

There’s this girl over in the corner who has on more makeup than anybody I’ve seen. At least anybody who wasn’t in a music video or playing a hooker in a movie. Or even on Jennifer’s sister, who one time had on so much eyeshadow that she couldn’t open her eyes all the way. We all thought she was sleepy for a whole day.

Anyway, the girl with the makeup never seems to turn her head. I keep seeing her looking around, but she does it all with her huge, huge eyes. Her mouth is all pursed up like she’s been eating supersour Altoids. She’s been like that ever since the teacher caught her text-messaging someone on her cell phone an hour ago and took it away. She got so annoyed, like she never expected it. Why was she surprised?

Plus, the teacher didn’t think to turn the phone off when she confiscated it, and in a couple of minutes you could hear it ringing from her desk drawer. There was some musical ringtone on it, and three separate people got the briefest of grooves on before we were all hushed up and she finally figured out how to switch it off.